Before creating a boot disk it is necessary to obtain your NIC/ROM information.

[The following are linux based commands.]

From a terminal/console workspace issue a "lspci" command.

This will return a description of the pci hardware on your system in the following format:

bus:device.function class: vendor. etc.

Record the ethernet controller information for the device you wish to PXE boot from. For example: 00:11:0 Ethernet Controller: SIS 900 (rev 90)

Then issue a "lspci -n" command which shows the PCI vendor and device codes as numbers. For example: 00:11:0 0XXX: 1039:0900

Now go to the Rom-o-matic web page.

To create and download an Etherboot ROM image:

1. Choose NIC/ROM type:

PCI IDs for available NICs are documented here. You need to know this if you are going to burn/flash a ROM image because PCI IDs on the NIC and ROM must match. If you are making any other kind of image, you only need to match the family (family:rom_name) part of the identifier.

Before creating a boot disk it is necessary to obtain your NIC/ROM information.

[The following are linux based commands.]

From a terminal/console workspace issue a "lspci" command.

This will return a description of the pci hardware on your system in the following format:

bus:device.function class: vendor. etc.

Record the ethernet controller information for the device you wish to PXE boot from. For example: 00:11:0 Ethernet Controller: SIS 900 (rev 90)

Then issue a "lspci -n" command which shows the PCI vendor and device codes as numbers. For example: 00:11:0 0XXX: 1039:0900

Now go to the Rom-o-matic web page.

To create and download an Etherboot ROM image:

1. Choose NIC/ROM type:

PCI IDs for available NICs are documented here. You need to know this if you are going to burn/flash a ROM image because PCI IDs on the NIC and ROM must match. If you are making any other kind of image, you only need to match the family (family:rom_name) part of the identifier.

I have been unable to get the USB stick working from the instructions given on the ROM-O-Matic website. I do have the image on CD and boot from this on one machine (has no floppy) and pigdog boot's from a floppy on one of his.

if you just boot from the floppy/USB/CD there should be no need to flash your NIC's ROM. This is easier IMHO than the instructions in the GRUB_PXE wiki page especially if you don't know Linux very well

Remember I was trying to get my PCI NIC card up and running in my windows machine. Well, I've stopped the practice and put my netgear GA311 PCI NIC in my MD.

I installed a DVD drive in my MD and booted from the Ubuntu CD and got to a terminal command window. From there I did the lspci and found my PCI card identification. Which of course is now a different PCI card identification than when this card was in my windows machine. Along way around the block.......but hey that's what learning is all about.

My MD is telling me that my PCI ID is RTL8169:10ec8169 - (10ec,8169).

The problem now is that http://rom-o-matic.net/. does not list this card specifically....it comes close with a r8169:10ec8169 -(10ec,8169).

I only chose the USB stick instead of a floppy because I currently don't have a floppy drive installed in the MD. If I trouble with the USB stick, I'll install a floppy drive in the MD and go from there.

I've put a floppy drive in my MD and I copied the the pxe boot image from rom-o-matic on to a floppy disk. My MD will not boot from the floppy. It says it is not bootable. Do I have to add something else to floppy disk besides the pxe boot image file?

I'm almost about to go buy a new motherboard that will feature pxe booting. But then I'm afraid that I'll still have the issue I had when I was using my windows machine with pxe booting capabilities and that was "ETH0 - no link during initialization".

Did you just copy the file across or did you follow pigdog's instructions? As below:

Quote

To make a bootable floppy on a GNU/Linux system, put a formatted floppy in your floppy drive and do:

$ cat eb-5.4.4-yournic.zdsk > /dev/fd0

where "eb-5.4.4-yournic.zdsk" is where you stored your downloaded ROM image.

On a DOS/Windows system, use the RAWRITE program to write the .zdsk image to a formatted floppy.

RAWRITE is available on most GNU/Linux installation CDs or on the web.

I did " dd if=image-disk.zdsk of=/dev/fd0"

I used the CD version which is an ISO file and then I used Sonic Record Now! on a windows box to burn the image.

From what you have said it would not boot at all (like mine when I tried it) rather than it booted and then took a dump becasue it found the wrong NIC. So it seems your struggle is getting it burnt to the media or getting you mobo to boot from that media. judging by my experience it is burning it to media. This is where I struggled with the USB drive and the original point to this thread

I think you're on the right track. Based on what you said, my problem right now is getting the media burnt properly becasue I did not follow all of Pigdog's instructions. I just copied the rom-o-matic file over to the floppy disk.